“One of the worst things you can do to a population is take away their ecology.”
– Oday Salim, quoted in Grist’s list of 50 “forward-thinking fixers” and sustainability leaders for 2018.
Professor Oday Salim is the director of the University of Michigan’s Environmental Law & Sustainability Clinic and he’s an attorney at the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Regional Center. (Those positions overlap.) Throughout his career, Salim has focused on environmental justice issues like water affordability, pollution control, improving non-native English speaker participation in state permitting processes, and more. Salim spoke with regular host Bella Isaacs about the issue of water affordability and accessibility in largely-minority communities, including water shutoffs in Detroit and a 1998 water infrastructure case in Lansing.